The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) signed a contract Sunday officially attributing the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships to the city of Stuttgart (GER).
To be held less than a year before the 2020 Olympic Games, these World Championships, scheduled to take place from October 4 to 13, will be especially important because they will serve as a major Olympic qualification event for the Tokyo Games.
FIG President Bruno Grandi (ITA) and DTB President Rainer Brechtken (GER) took advantage of the 2015 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart this week to sign the contract, which follows a vote in favor of the German bid to host the Championships during the FIG Council last May.
Bruno Grandi and Rainer Brechtken
“This is the third time that we are allocating Stuttgart the organisation of the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. After the success of the 2007 edition, Stuttgart was an obvious choice: it is a city with high-quality infrastructures and has proven extremely capable of putting on first-rate sports events, as we’ve seen demonstrated again this week,” Grandi said.
“With the German Federation as our partner, we know that our highlight competitions are in good hands,” he added.
“We’re looking forward to organising the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships. We wanted to host these Worlds because of their importance to Gymnastics, the athletes and our federation,” remarked Brechtken. “We have already successfully hosted the World Championships in 2007, the year before an Olympic Games, which had a durable impact.”
Upcoming editions of the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships will be held in Glasgow (GBR) from October 23-November 1, 2015; in Montreal (CAN) from September 27-October 9, 2017; and in Doha (QAT) from October 25-November 3, 2018.
Russia and Italy split the titles up for grabs in Group competition as the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships came to a close Sunday in Stuttgart (GER).
The Russian Team: Diana Borisova, Daria Kleshcheva, Anastasiia Maksimova, Sofya Skomorokh, Anastasiia Tartareva and Maria Tolkacheva
WIth a gold medal in the Five Ribbons event, Italy ruined a potential Russian sweep of the golds in Group competition. The Russian Group, already gold medallists from Saturday’s All-around final, avenged themselves almost immediately by winning the Clubs and Hoops event.
The Italian Group — Martina Centofanti, Sofia Lodi, Alessia Maurelli, Marta Pagnini, Camilla Patriarca and Andreea Stefanescu — took advantage of their last-up position in the final with the 5 Ribbons, delivering a clean and exceptionally dramatic performance that earned them a standing ovation from the nearly sold out crowd at the Porsche Arena and gold from the judges (17.900 points).
Looking fresh and confident after winning the Group All-around Saturday, the Russians earned a 17.850 for their Ribbons performance, which included a higher execution score from the judges. But the Italians trumped them on difficulty, the difference being enough for gold.
The Russian Group — Diana Borisova, Daria Kleshcheva, Anastasia Maksimova, Sofya Skomorokh, Anastasia Tartareva and Maria Tolkacheva — returned to center stage less than half an hour later after a solid performance with the Hoops and Clubs (18.125) to win the final event, just 0.025 ahead of the surcharged Italians (18.100).
The Italian Group: Martina Centofanti, Sofia Lodi, Alessia Maurelli, Marta Pagnini, Camilla Patriarca and Andreea Stefanescu
Japan surprised to take bronze with the 5 Ribbons (17.366), the country’s first medal at a Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships since 1975. Bulgaria, the only Group to come within striking distance of the Russians in the overall competition, took bronze with the Clubs and Hoops (17.866) to go with their silver from the All-around competition.
Russia emerges as the big winner of this 34th World Championships, taking eight of the nine gold medals available.
2013 and 2014 World champion Yana Kudryavtseva (RUS) pocketed another three gold medals during the second night of individual apparatus finals at the 2015 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart (GER).
Seventeen-year-old Kudryavtseva, who successfully defended her World title with the Ball Tuesday night, added World titles with the Clubs and Ribbon Thursday, as well as an additional gold in the team competition, in the company of her countrywomen Margarita Mamun and Aleksandra Soldatova.
Despite a slight leg injury that kept her out of the Hoop competition here in Stuttgart, the 17-year-old Muscovite has been nothing less than dominant since the Championships began. With the Clubs, she was flawless, scoring 19.066 points to take her third consecutive World title with the apparatus.
Soldatova, who outscored Mamun to qualify for the Clubs final, took a distant silver (18.583), her second of these Championships.
The last competitor to perform with the Ribbon, Kudryavtseva appeared to improvise slightly at the end of her routine after failing to catch the Ribbon’s wand following a throw. Her score, 18.866, was still enough to edge Mamun (18.850), the 2014 World champion with the Ribbon, due to a superior execution score.
Yana Kudryavtseva, Russia
Ukraine’s Ganna Rizatdinova won bronze with both Clubs (18.566) and Ribbon (18.383), just as she did Tuesday with the Hoop, giving the 22-year-old three individual bronze medals so far in Stuttgart.
The Russian trio of Kudryavtseva, Mamun and Soldatova also finished 1-2-3 in qualifications, giving the Russians the World team title, the total of the eight best scores obtained by a country’s gymnasts. With 149.990 points, Russia finished more than eight points ahead of Belarus and Ukraine.
The 2015 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships continues with the individual All-around final Friday night. Kudryavtseva, the top qualifier, is a favorite to win her third consecutive World All-around title.
Five questions with Natalyia Kuzmina, President of the FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee
Eastern Europe has traditionally been a bastion of Rhythmic Gymnastics, but we have been seeing that gymnasts from the Americas and Asia are beginning to challenge this domination a bit. How do you explain this ?
Kuzmina: “You’re right: there has been visible progress in Asia, not only in Uzbekistan but in Korea, Japan and other countries. But there has also been notable progress in America. I was at the Pan American Games in July in Toronto, and I was very surprised to see that there were 6,000 spectators who came to see the Rhythmic events, not just the relatives of the athletes but local people, because Canada does not have a big Rhythmic tradition. The gymnasts from the Pan American countries as well have made a great deal of progress and have a lot to look forward to, as do those from Africa. We are very aware at the FIG that this sport must be universal. We have put in place FIG Academies and judges courses to help spread knowledge and training techniques. It’s very important that the coaches and choreographers from leading countries organise seminars and give courses on how to compose a routine and use the apparatus. I am expecting to see many continents in the All-around final here in Stuttgart.”
Yana Kudryavtseva, Russia,
Yana Kudryavtseva (RUS) has been the dominant gymnast of the past two World Championships. What makes her such an exceptional gymnast ?
Kuzmina: “It’s true that she is unique. Yana has exceptional apparatus elements and harmony with music. She has excellent coaches and benefits from wonderful training conditions put in place by the Russian Rhythmic Federation. Its President and Head coach, Irina Viner, has a long-term vision and has put in place an organisation and methods so that the gymnasts are always well prepared. In Russia as well, there are music specialists, specialists for choreography and a big medical center in the vicinity if they need to see doctors. That too is unique.”
What needs to be done to continue to develop Rhythmic outside Europe ?
Kuzmina: “Courses are one thing, but we also have to think of ways to render our programme more exciting and attractive to all federations. We should revise the code of points in order to support the principle of universality. This idea may seem new, but why not try to develop team Rhythmic Gymnastics competitions for men like they do in Japan? Or pairs with two apparatus? Or Mixed Pairs? There are a lot of ideas coming from our federations. One must know how to evolve. We cannot just leave the situation as it is, because we know that the competition is strong between sports to continue to be part of the Olympic programme.”
Five judges from the 2014 World Rhythmic Championships in Izmir were just sanctioned by the FIG Disciplinary Commission for biased judging. What does this say to you ?
Kuzmina: “Obviously, we’re not happy about this. We have fought to have fair, objective judging in Rhythmic Gymnastics. We should organise a more practical education system for new judges. The judges from Asia or South America especially don’t have a lot of opportunity to get experience. All the judges must be objective and honest. A judge must judge only what he or she sees, without taking into account the name of the gymnast or which country or continent she comes from. But I think that over the years we have made progress. It’s not enough to penalize the judges, because judges are only human and they make errors. The main thing is educating them and then giving them ample practice.”
Natalyia Kuzmina, President of the FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee
The FIG Rhythmic Technical Committee is preparing a new code of points for the 2017-2020 Olympic cycle. What changes would you like to see in the new code ?
Kuzmina: “That’s a difficult question. We would like to eliminate the repetition of elements. We have a special scientific workgroup that has done some research and collected a lot of data. The important thing is the handling of the apparatus, because we are a sport that uses apparatus. So we would like to focus on the manipulation of the apparatus as well as the artistic side of the sport: the use of music and how the gymnast works with it. That’s what I hope to see in the future.”
newfanzone 